Usually a server always, or really often populated with ACTIVE-PLAYING players has a better chance to attract players. My old community at the time was always pushing members/admins to come play to populate the server early on. It was annoying but it had one of the most popular & populated server at the time (well ranked in the country).
Note that always having someone spectator might not help, as it is annoying and users may start taking for granted that there is always 1 afk-spectator, though I've seen it a couple of time.
You may also want to define what kind of server you want (for yourself at least). Do you want good players to play in (competitively), even if it makes people rage (
) ? Or do you want more casuals players (less competitive) ? Or a server where all kind of maps are played ? Depending which one you may place or not some plugins. i.e. having an admin slapping/bombing/freezing for fun a player, with no reason, or having a roll-the-dice in a competitive is retarded.
Also if you want good players (good shots), playing casual jail-break or such map may disinterest them, and you may need to check and validate more your admins' decisions (i.e. changing map with low approval, thinking that someone hack because he's good; but if your server is casual, I wouldn't be surprised that such a thing happen). In general I feel like there are some admins (a bit rare) that accept really good players, while there is a shitload, sadly, that kick/ban if you're too good, or who are too easily pissed and mute too quickly.
You may need to set a minimum requirements for bans for admin. My community had a obligatory demo to be taken of and be kept for a certain period. This lead to people being unbanned a few times because people would never demo them. Non-admin could also demo people which could lead to a ban. A lot of people were very good, and I felt that bans were really often well justified (or should I say very rarely unjustified).
You'd also need to establish what kind of minimum respect you want for your server. Some server have it for admin only, other for everyone. Can you swear ? Can you say f*ck you to someone, as long as it isn't abused nor often ? etc.
If you only want a server to have a server, this will be hard; but if you're commited to have an alive communtiy, admins and players, that'd be possible.
Having a stats tracking plugin seems to be appreciate by some players too.
I also remember a rule where it says that admins had to never stack... which was not-respected-enough; and stomped teams had players leaving generally quick enough. But of course having an automatic team balancer is another "extreme", often.
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